Budget core upgrade build for father

[Voodoo Rufus]

So my father is still on a hand me down FX-8300 CPU, and its stability is questionable. He's finally on an NVMe drive thankfully, and 32GB of DDR3. Even my old Sandy Bridge is more rig than his, by a little bit.

I want to get him a new mainboard, CPU and DDR4 memory for a core upgrade. He doesn't need a ton of horsepower, but being an engineer he runs many professional programs and web tabs simultaneously. I'm thinking something like an AMD 3600 or 5600 based system. Or an Intel 6-8 core based CPU. He has a tendency to pick budget motherboards while expecting workstation reliability, so I'd like a midrange board. He also thinks $750 is too much. If I can get it closer to $500 he might be more easily persuaded.

 

[dejo]

I would choose the 5xxx over the 3xxx series, they seem to be quite a bit faster in blender type apps. They do need some cooling upgrade over the 3xxx series it seems to me. I have the R7 5700g APU and am pretty impressed by it

 

[Oldschool_OC]

An Intel build could look something like this for just a little over the 500 mark:

https://www.newegg.com/patriot-32gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820225258
https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i5-10400-core-i5-10th-gen/p/N82E16819118135
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813144394

Or an AMD build approximately equivalent:

https://www.newegg.com/patriot-32gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820225258
https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-5-3600/p/N82E16819113569
https://www.newegg.com/msi-b550-a-pro/p/N82E16813144330

 

[Voodoo Rufus]

Thanks for those. I'd hunt for better ram probably, but those are solid starts.

 

[EarthDog]

I'd hunt for better ram probably,

Why? Is Dad going to be able to notice the difference between a lower CL or faster RAM? Save your money and get sweetspot RAM for systems like this.

 

[Voodoo Rufus]

Not really, but it doesn't hurt to shop around for the best speed/timings for the buck. I'd probably lower it to 3200MHz and snug up the timings as well since that's that the AMD chips are spec'ed for.

 

[EarthDog]

You could definitely go slower and save some cash too. I wouldn't go below 3200 CL16.